Sending Missionaries to Wartime China

98 the salaries of Japanese workers, but, after the Great Depression in 1929, Olmstead notified Tsuchiyama about the American board’s financial difficulties. While it was not easy, Japanese Free Methodists made their unanimous decision for self-support.

Tsuchiyama proclaimed, “we can no longer depend upon financial support from abroad for our workers. This will certainly be a point of change in the Free Methodist Church.

Our pastors must now be supported by faith and faith alone.”¹⁹⁹ Receiving the decision from Japan, an American Free Methodist executive noted, “The home [American] church will always remember the message that came from Japan in the midst of an unparalleled economic depression in 1932.” The Japan Free Methodist churches “have thrown off all support from the Commission on Missions” and “requested that funds normally sent to them be appropriated for the churches in China, India, and Africa.” He noted how Americans were impressed and heartened by “this generous act” and praised the Japanese Church for its “large investment in the world outreach of Free Methodism.”²⁰⁰ After achieving its goal of becoming “Self-Propagating, Self-Supporting, and Self-Governing,”

the Japan Church was ready to meet greater challenges. Now independent, members were expected to take more responsibility in the world Christian mission, especially in Asia.

99 Several factors led Tsuchiyama to make his evangelical trips to wartime China.

One of them was the split of the Japan Free Methodist Church into two parties as a result of the publication of a controversial Bible guide on the Book of Genesis in 1931.

Introducing a new understanding of the Creation called “higher criticism,” the book was regarded as heretical, as were the two Free Methodist pastors who wrote and published the book. Under Tsuchiyama’s leadership, the Church put the case to trial and decided to expel these two pastors from the denomination. This decision then led many church leaders and believers who were sympathetic to them, and who opposed Tsuchiyama, to leave the denomination. Tsuchiyama thus needed to consolidate the unity and increase the strength of the remaining church by striving for a common cause.²⁰¹

Equally pressing for the denomination was the urgent need of demonstrating Japanese Christians’ loyalty to the State. Since the end of the Tokugawa period, Japanese Christians had faced continual suspicions about their patriotism and loyalty, and about their relationship with Western missionaries. To meet these concerns, many Japanese Christians sought some unique “Japanese” attributes to their faith. They also sought to promote an ecumenical movement that would amalgamate all Protestant groups into one denomination. This would, they hoped, make their presence known and demonstrate their willingness to cooperate, a position the imperial government took advantage of later for its own purposes. Related to these issues, imperial expansion after the Sino-Japanese War presented Japanese Christians with additional thorny questions. The Japanese government expected all religions to work on behalf of imperialistic domination, and Japanese Christians were therefore urged to help shoulder the responsibilities for “pacification”

201 Kaneda, Seiki no dendōsha Tsuchiyama hakase no omokage, 71-74; Nihon jiyū mesojisuto kyōdan, Senkyō kaishi 120ssyūnen kinenshi (Osaka: Miura insatsu, 2016), 4.

日本自由メスジスト教団『宣教開始百二十周年記念誌』（大阪：ミウラ印刷、2016）．

100 work in newly acquired overseas Japanese territories.²⁰²

While their evangelical work among Japanese diaspora in Hawaii and on the American and Canadian West Coasts was positively recognized, their work within Japan’s expanding Empire, in places like Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria, relied on the assistance of the Japanese military and therefore caused much controversy. Nevertheless, Japanese Christians quickly sent missionaries after Japan acquired Taiwan at the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. The first Sino-Japanese missionary, a Presbyterian named Kawai Kumesuke, established the first church in Taihoku in 1896 with help of Taiwanese and Canadian Presbyterians. Other denominations quickly followed. With the influx of Japanese residents in Korea in 1905, the Congregationalist Church took the lead and launched missionary efforts that both spread the Gospel and supported the government’s colonization of Korea and big businesses like Mitsui. Manchuria also attracted Japanese missionaries of all the major denominations including the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Methodists. The number of Japanese missionaries dramatically increased after the Manchurian incident in 1931.²⁰³ Thus, Tsuchiyama’s mission trip to China was part of a larger trend among Japanese Christian churches seeking to further develop outside Japan. Ironically, deteriorating international relationships among the U.S., China, and Japan boosted Japan’s China mission.

At the same time, in accordance of the events such as the Manchusian Incident in September 1931 to May 1933, the establishment of Manchuko by the Japanese government in March 1932, Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations in February

202 A. Hamish Ion, “The Cross under an Imperial Sun: Imperialism, Nationalism, and Japanese Christianity, 1895-1945,” in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 69.

203 Ion, “The Cross under an Imperial Sun: Imperialism, Nationalism, and Japanese Christianity, 1895-1945,” 77-82.

101 1933, the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to 1945, and the Pacific War in 1941 to 1945, the Japanese government imposed even closer controls on its citizens, especially on Christians because Christianity was understood as the enemy’s religion. The government kept its eye on Christians because it was skeptical about their loyalty to the nation.

Launching the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement in 1937, for example, the Ministry of Education issued a notice to the Japan Free Methodist Church, as well as to other denominations and other religious organizations, making sure that the spirit of loyalty and patriotism pervaded every aspect of church activity.²⁰⁴

Tsuchiyama, however, understood the empire slightly differently. Agreeing with the government’s official position, he considered the war against China as a war against communism, which he considered the enemy of the Japan, humanity, and God. He thus believed that Japanese Christians should support the empire as guardians of evangelism.²⁰⁵ As the Japanese military’s control increased in China, he thus thought he

“definitely caught the vision and heard the Macedonian Call.” He desired to visit Chinese Christians who were undergoing fiery trials believing that God would supply all the means for his China trip. Comparing his trip to the Apostle Paul’s visit to Jerusalem, Tsuschiyama believed that Japanese Christians who willingly gave an offering for the Chinese Christians were just like Christians in the Macedonian churches who had also willingly made an offering to suffering Christians in Jerusalem. He was certain of “a great blessing for their [Japanese] own hearts as well as for the Chinese” and of the great joy of Jesus Christ looking at “[h]is followers were loving and helping each other” while their

204 “Sōmukyoku kokuchi,” Mattaikiai 252, October 10, 1937, 7.「総務局告知」『全き愛』252号 (1937.10.10).

205 Tetsuji Tsuchiyama, “Jikyoku no ninshikito jyūgo no mamori,” Mattakiai 251, September 10, 1937, 1.

土山鐡次「時局の認識と銃後の護り」『全き愛』251号 (1937.9.10).

102 nations were fighting. In his mind was a Bible verse, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”²⁰⁶ In spite of the danger, he was determined to fulfill his duty “to please Christ, and do all for His glory; to comfort the Chinese Christians, and to investigate conditions there.”²⁰⁷ Before Tsuchiyama’s departure for China, all thirty Free Methodist preachers gathered together to have a special prayer meeting for four days.²⁰⁸ The church, in short, united with Tsuchiyama to simultaneously serve the State and God. Tsuchiyama’s trip reflected these overlapping commitments and demonstrated both the possibilities and the limits of transnational religious connections. As would later be revealed, the ultimate goals of the empire and God’s Kingdom would never match. Still confident that they might, Tsuchiyama left for China in high spirits.

Tsuchiyama left Japan for China via Korea on October 30, 1938. In Korea, he preached and had fellowship with Korean Christians in several places. Before he left for Tientsin, China, a Japanese preacher named Shimizu, the district elder of the Holiness Church, and a Western missionary named Troxel joined Tsuchiyama and accompanied him afterwards.²⁰⁹ The meeting of these Korean, Japanese and American Christians showd how they tried to maintain their own transnational space despite worsening diplomatic conditions. But at the same time, Tsuchiyama also visited some Japanese military camps to express his sympathy and gratitude for their work. This complex balance between Christian fellowship and Japanese patriotism continued to be a persistent theme throughout his mission trip.

206 Matthew 25:40 (King James version).

207 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 8-9.

208 Tsuchiyama, Urami wo kobotsu namida no akusyu, 19.

209 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 11-13.

103 In Peking, Tsuchiyama first visited the Chinese Language School where forty to fifty American missionaries were studying the Chinese language. He also visited some Japanese churches, the Holiness Church and the Congregational Church, and the Su Tei School, a school for Chinese students which Shimizu had conducted for twenty years.

Tsuchiyama felt the intimate relationship between Shimizu and his wife and all the Chinese boys and girls revealing the success of their work. While he had Christian fellowship at these places, he faced rejection when he visited the Bible Training School of the Oriental Missionary Society of Peking. There an American missionary welcomed him, but she seemed puzzled when he asked her to give him a chance to preach to the Chinese students. He asked again, but the missionary gave no answer. He insisted saying, “To establish peace in the Orient is the mission of the Christians. I came from Japan to get an understanding with the Chinese workers and to do something for peace between Japanese and Chinese. Unless we Christians become one[,] who can solve this problem and settle this trouble in the Orient?” “Well, then, come tomorrow and you may have an hour to speak,” the missionary finally answered reluctantly. On the next day, he faced the whole student body feeling an anti-Japanese atmosphere. But once he started talking about the Gospel in which they all believed, he could feel their attitude changing for the better. The president of the school also expressed anti-Japanese sentiment at first, but he and his wife completely changed their attitudes as they listened to Tsuchiyama’s sermon and explanation about his purpose of coming there for the sake of Chinese Christians.²¹⁰

A similar thing happened in Tiestsin where Tsuchiyama went back from Peking

210 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 13-14; Tsuchiyama, Urami wo kobotsu namida no akusyu, 40-44.

104 on November 16. Revisiting the National Holiness Association Mission and Bible School, he tried again to get permission to speak to the Chinese students at the school. Tsuchiyama asked the American missionaries, “Will you give me some chance to talk to your [Chinese] students.” They refused, explaining that, “We have plans made for a revival meeting in the school for a whole week.” Refusing to back down, Tsuchiyama continued,

“Well, I have come at just the right time. You should let me speak at one meeting.” “But we have a special evangelist for this occasion. We are afraid it will interrupt this meeting if you preach,” answered the missionaries. After much bandying of words, Tsuchiyama left the school disappointed. One of the missionaries, however, came to visit him later that evening and asked, “Will you come to eat breakfast with us tomorrow morning at seven o’clock? Then from eight o’clock you may have one hour to speak in our chapel service.” Tsuchiyama leaped for joy at this good news because he had been praying for the opportunity to have contact with the Chinese students at this school.

Looking at a letter the missionary handed to him, Tsuchiyama found it was from Troxel who had visited Osaka before. The letter said, “Hearing that you have come to China I am very happy. I am sorry I am now inland for preaching and cannot return until next January, but I am sure that the other missionaries will be glad to introduce you to the Chinese students.” Tsuchiyama thought, “If this letter had not come that night I might have lost the opportunity to contact these students, but it came at just the right time. I am sure this was God’s answer to the prayers for Tientsin.”²¹¹ It seemed this letter persuaded other missionaries to let Tsuchiyama speak to the Chinese students. The missionaries gave him a warm reception, but they hesitated to let him speak to the Chinese because they

211 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 16.

105 were aware of many Chinese in the audience who suffered great hardships during the war and felt hatred against the Japanese. Tsuchiyama knew that “[t]his was true everywhere, all through the country.”²¹² He, nevertheless, wanted to preach the Gospel to the Chinese believing that building a transnational connection to the Chinese was a vital mission for Japanese Christians.

As the missionaries and Tsuchiyama himself predicted, he faced a tense atmosphere when he stood in front of the Chinese students on the next day. But, as he started talking, the entire atmosphere gradually changed to a warmer one. The missionaries’ anxiety disappeared. In his message, he emphasized the love of God manifested on the Cross. He told them “how the Japanese people were praying for the suffering Chinese people,” and how he came to China “carrying a present offered by the Japanese Christians, who had been constrained to do this by the love of God.” His interpreter, John Moe, “a man blessed of God and a skillful master of the Chinese language” according to Tsuchiyama, interpreted the language as well as the tender spirit.

Moe expressed his emotions, “I was conscious of the Lord’s help while interpreting. The congregation repeatedly broke out weeping as mention was made of the war. Never in my thirty-four years in China have I seen a Chinese congregation weep as much as they did.”²¹³ After the message, everyone, the Chinese, Americans, and the Japanese Christians, prayed together, and the whole student body “broke out with loud sobbing and crying.” The Chinese students came to him one by one, greeting him with a friendly handshake and asserting, “Let us labor together for Christ.” Following the meeting, the Chinese students including the female students even invited him to visit their dormitory

212 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 15-16.

213 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 17.

106 rooms. Even the cook at the school invited him to the kitchen to entertain him with a Chinese hot bread called “manto,” a Chinese sweet cake. Tsuchiyama’s rich transnational Christian fellowship with Chinese and American believers made him think it was the realization of an event in the Bible. “Truly the gospel and the Cross broke up the enmity and made us all one. What seemed to be such difficulties, even to the missionaries, were overcome by the Cross,” recalled Tsuchiyama.²¹⁴ Later Moe also noted:

One of the results of this meeting was the deliverance from an unforgiving spirit of a young [Chinese] man who had again and again been forward to get sanctified but never seemed to obtain the experience. In the testimony meeting he [the young Chinese student] said, “While listening to the testimony of Mr. Tsuchiyama I came to see I was harboring something in my heart, an unforgiving spirit, which hindered me in obtaining the blessing [that] my heart was longing for.

But I have now come to realize that God loves the Japanese as well as the Chinese, and as Christians we should love one another.”… Mr. Tsuchiyama’s message in testimony was made a blessing to many. He was indeed a messenger of the Lord.²¹⁵

Tsuchiyama’s message seemed to reach to Chinese Christians, and they were united with Japanese Christians in Christ as he hoped.

In Tsinan, Tsuchiyama was accompanied by a Japanese pastor in the church of the Omi Brotherhood named Nishimura who had graduated from the seminary in Osaka more than a decade earlier. Now together in China, Tsuchiyama and Nishimura encountered another harsh reality. They visited Tsiro University where an American missionary worked. Nishimura knew the missionary because he had met her in Japan when she had visited Omi for a week on her way to China. Remembering the warm welcome she had received in Japan, the American missionary seemed to feel embarrassed not to give them an equally open-armed reception. She seemed hesitant to let them come onto the campus. Tsuchiyama, however, insisted on visiting because he had always

214 Tsuchiyama referred to Ephesians 2:13-15. Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 16-19.

215 Call to Prayer, missionary publication on mission in China published by the National Holiness Missionary Society and the World Gospel Mission in March 1939, in Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 17.

107 worked easily with Western missionaries, and he was eager to reach the students. The American missionary reluctantly let them into the room, where Tsuchiyama saw four Chinese professors of the university and a Y.M.C.A. secretary sitting at a table. They looked very surprised and became silent seeing the Japanese visitors. No Japanese, even Kagawa Toyohiko, one of the most famous Japanese evangelists, had ever been allowed to visit this university since the Japanese attack on China. The missionary had hesitated to welcome them because of this strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Tsuchiyama, nevertheless, started to deliver his message of “the love of Christ manifested on the Cross”

and told the Chinese professors of “the prayers of the Japanese Christians who were offering their love to the Chinese Christians.” He also explained, “We are praying for the peace of the Orient. It is for that purpose that we have come to visit your country.” One of them replied, “We, also, are hoping for peace.” After his talk, as they prayed together, Tsuchiyama saw their eyes fill with tears. He once again experienced the power of “the love of God,” which destroyed enmity and ill feelings among the intellectual Chinese. He glorified “the Victory of the Cross” again.²¹⁶ Tsuchiyama’s enthusiasm changed their attitudes and made “good Christian fellowship” possible.

Tsuchiyama and Nishimura left for Kaifeng via several other cities. They went through some battlegrounds and from the train windows saw many monuments to the dead Japanese soldiers. On their way, they visited some Japanese military camps and had fellowship with Japanese soldiers. From Kyokufu to the Confucian Shrine, the soldiers gave them a ride with five Chinese men carrying guns to protect the Japanese. That night the soldiers gave the Japanese Christians a warm reception at their camp and offered them

216 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 20-21; Tsuchiyama, Urami wo kobotsu namida no akusyu; jihenka tairiku imon dendōki, 64-73.

108 a place to sleep. Tsuchiyama expressed his deep gratitude to the soldiers, and the soldiers expressed no hostility toward the Christians but welcomed them and begged them to talk about Japan. Tsuchiyama heard gun shots several times and saw a Chinese woman crying at a tomb, but he believed that these unfortunate incidents happened because the Japanese military was fighting for the Japanese and on behalf of the Chinese against the Communist threat.²¹⁷ On his way back to Japan, from Hsucho to Nanking, Tsuchiyama and Nishimura took a Japanese military train because no ordinary train was available. While it was not a passenger train, they had to receive special permission to ride. In the train, they had pleasant conversation with the military officers and soldiers sitting on the baggage. Taking this as his “opportunity to give a testimony,” Tsuchiyama spoke about the Gospel to them. Besides enjoying Christian fellowship, he took the opportunity to visit Japanese soldiers and to have his own evangelistic campaign among them.²¹⁸ In this way, he equated his work among the Chinese seminary students with his work among the Japanese soldiers, not noticing the inherent contradiction between the two.

Finally, Tsuchiyama and Nishimura reached Kaifeng to meet American Free Methodist missionaries and Chinese Christians there. When they arrived in the evening, however, no one was at the station to welcome them. They became disappointed because Tsuchiyama had sent a telegram to James Hudson Taylor, one of the Free Methodist American missionaries, and asked them to meet at the station. Wondering if the telegram had not reached the missionary, they took a rickshaw to the city to find a hotel to stay in.

Without knowing the Japanese language, the Chinese rickshaw man carried them around in the dark streets and finally dropped them off at a Chinese hotel. On the next day, Sunday,

217 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 26.

218 Tsuchiyama, Victory of the Cross, 34-37.